Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts explained

Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts are, well, at the heart of Diablo 4 Season 1. Scattered throughout Sanctuary are elite enemies afflicted by a cursed infestation known as the Malignance. Killing these Malignant monsters and enemies grants Malignant Hearts, which when equipped act similarly to gems and offer new legendary offensive, defensive, and utility buffs and powers to fine-tune your seasonal build.

Here’s a breakdown of everything we know about Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts and their in-game mechanics. The Diablo 4 Season 1 start date is nearly here so we don’t have long before we can test them out and there are freshly-penned patch notes to scour through as well.

What are Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts

Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts are socketable buffs that can be slotted into ring and amulet jewelry gem sockets – known as Malignant Sockets in the Season of the Malignant – that grant a unique legendary power, buff, or bonus. The power and stats of Malignant Hearts grow alongside player progress and level, so it’s worth farming hearts throughout Season 1. There are a total of 32 Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4 Season 1 that break down into one of four colour-coded categories:

• Vicious Hearts – orange, offensive power.
• Brutal Hearts – blue, defensive power.
• Devious Hearts – pink, utility power. 
• Wrathful – black, super power.

The colour of a Malignant Heart indicates the type of heart but also what type of jewelry socket it’s compatible with. Note that Wrathful Hearts can slot into any of the three colour sockets – orange, blue, and purple.

How to get Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts

To get Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4 Season 1, you’ll need to defeat partly corrupted Malignant elite enemies in the Seasonal Realm. These enemies spawn throughout Sanctuary at random and pose more of a challenge than standard elite enemies. 

After downing them, you’ll need to use the Cage of Binding – an item unlocked by completing the Season 1 quest line – to perform a ritual and spawn a fully corrupted Malignant enemy to capture the Malignant Heart inside a Caged Heart that can then be used in a jewelry socket.

Players can also farm for Malignant Hearts in one of the six Malignant Tunnels across Sanctuary. These are Season 1-specific replayable mini-sized dungeons. Inside are two Outgrowths, colour-coded to match Malignant Heart types – one black indicating a Wrathful Heart and the other matching one of the three other Malignant Heart types. Players choose the Heart type they want then use Malignant Invokers (a type of item crafted at Cormond’s Wagon), to spawn a fully corrupted enemy that drops a corresponding Malignant Heart when defeated.

Players can also salvage unwanted Malignant Hearts at Cormond’s wagon for a currency called Ichor. Ichor is colour-coded to match the salvaged heart and can be used to create new hearts.

Salvage rewards:

• Vicious, Brutal, and Devious Hearts – 5-15 Ichor.
• Wrathful Hearts – 2-5 Ichor.

Malignant Heart crafting costs:

• Vicious Heart – 35 Brutal Ichor and 35 Devious Ichor.
• Brutal Heart – 35 Vicious Ichor and 35 Devious Ichor.
• Devious Heart – 35 Brutal Ichor and 35 Vicious Ichor.

How to use Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts

To use a Malignant Heart in Diablo 4 Season, open up your inventory and place the desired Caged Heart into an open socket on an amulet or ring. Note that you can only socket a heart if the colour corresponds with the colour of the socket on the jewelry. An orange Malignant Heart can only be socketed in a ring or amulet with an orange Malignant Socket, and so on.

All Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4 Season 1

Aside from offensive, defensive, utility, and super categories, Malignant Hearts also break down into class-agnostic general hearts along with class-specific and exclusive hearts. Here’s a full list of Diablo 4 Season 1 Malignant Hearts.

General Malignant Hearts

• The Picana (Vicious, Offensive): Critical Strikes electrically charge the enemy for 0.75-2.50 seconds, causing lightning to arc between them and any other charged enemies dealing 68-136 Lightning damage.
• The Dark Dance (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier III): Every 5 seconds while above 60% Life, Core Skills cost 68-51 Life instead of your Primary Resource. Skills that consume Life deal 10-20% increased damage.
• Tempting Fate (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier III): You gain 40-60% Critical Strike Damage but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20-15% less damage.
• The Lionheart (Brutal, Defensive): You gain 10% Barrier Generation. You Heal 3-7 Life per second while you have an active Barrier.
• Revenge (Brutal, Defensive-World Tier III): 10-20% of incoming damage is instead suppressed. When you use a Defensive, Subterfuge or a Macabre skill, all suppressed damage is amplified by 250% and explodes, dealing up to 1360-2040 Fire damage to Nearby enemies.
• Prudent Heart (Brutal, Defensive-World Tier III): You become Immune for 2.0-4.0 seconds after you lose more than 20% Life in a single hit. This effect can only occur once every 110 seconds.
• Determination (Devious, Utility): Resource draining effects are 40-50% less effective. In addition, gain 3.0-8.0% increased Resource Generation.
• Retaliation (Devious, Utility-World Tier III): Deal 510-680 Fire damage to surrounding enemies whenever a Crowd Control effect is removed from you.
• The Calculated (Devious, Utility-World Tier III): After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resource, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds.
• The Malignant Pact (Wrathful, Super): Cycle through a Malignant bonus every 20 kills:
  • Vicious: Gain 20% Attack Speed.
  • Devious: Core and Basic Skills have a 15% chance to fully restore your Primary Resource.
  • Brutal: Every 21 seconds, gain a Barrier absorbing 85-102 damage.
• Creeping Death (Wrathful, Super): Your damage over time effects are increased by 30-40% for each different Crowd Control effect on the target. Unstoppable monsters and Staggered bosses instead take 110-130% increased damage from your damage over time effects.
• The Barber (Wrathful, Super-World Tier III): Critical Strikes and all subsequent damage within 2.0-4.0 seconds is absorbed by your target. Then, the absorbed damage erupts onto surrounding enemies. Stored damage is increased by 10% per second.

Barbarian Malignant Hearts

• Focused Rage (Vicious, Offensive): After spending 100-60 Fury within 2 seconds, your next Non-Basic Skill’s Critical Strike Chance is increased by 20-30%.
• Resurgent Life (Brutal, Defensive): While below 40-60% Life, you receive 50-60% more Healing from all sources.
• Punishing Speed (Devious, Utility): Your Skills have a 20-30% chance to Knock Down all enemies for 1.25 seconds when that Skill’s Attack Speed is higher than 35-20%.
• Ignoring Pain (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): Incoming damage has a 5-15% chance of being ignored and instead Healing you for 17-68.

Druid Malignant Hearts

• The Moonrage (Vicious, Offensive): Kills have a 5% chance to summon a Wolf Companion to your side for 20-30 seconds. In addition, gain +3 to Wolves.
• The Agitated Winds (Brutal, Defensive): When 8-13 Close enemies, automatically cast Cyclone Armor. This cannot occur more than once every 10-20 seconds.
• Inexorable Force (Devious, Utility): Up to 30-50 Distant enemies are pulled toward you while you have an Ultimate Skill active.
• The Unconstrained Beast (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): When you are hit with a Stun, Freeze or Knock Down effect, there is a 40-60% chance to automatically activate Grizzly Rage for 3 seconds.

Necromancer Malignant Hearts

• The Sacrilegious (Vicious, Offensive): Walking near a Corpse automatically activates an equipped Corpse Skill every second, dealing 40-30% reduced damage.
• The Decrepit Aura (Brutal, Defensive): When at least 5 enemies are near you, gain an aura that automatically curses surrounding enemies with Decrepify for 5-15 seconds.
• Frozen Terror (Devious, Utility): Lucky Hit: Up to a 10-20% chance of inflicting Fear for 2.5 seconds. Feared enemies are Chilled for 20% every second.
• The Great Feast (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): Each Minion drains 1.0-2.0 Essence per second but deals 50-75% increased damage. With no Minions, this bonus applies to you and drains 5 Essence per second.

Rogue Malignant Hearts

• Cluster Munitions (Vicious, Offensive): Lucky Hit: You have up to a 20% chance to launch 3 Stun Grenades that deal 26-32 Physical damage and Stun enemies for 0.50 seconds.
• Trickery (Brutal, Defensive): When you use a Subterfuge Skill, leave behind an unstable Shadow Decoy Trap that Taunts enemies. The Shadow Decoy Trap will explode after 6.0 seconds dealing 680-1020 Shadow damage. Cannot occur more than once every 5 seconds.
• The Clipshot (Devious, Utility): Lucky Hit: Up to a 20-40% chance for your Cutthroat Skills to Slow by 40% for 3 seconds and your Marksman Skills to Knock Back enemies.
• The Vile Apothecary (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): Your attacks have a 5-15% chance to apply all Imbuement effects at 40-50% of normal potency.

Sorcerer Malignant Hearts

• Tal’Rasha (Vicious, Offensive): For each unique element you deal damage with, you deal 7-12% increased damage for 3-10 seconds.
• Spellbreaking (Brutal, Defensive): After taking Elemental damage, gain 20-40% Resistance to that element for 5 seconds.
• Spite (Devious, Utility): When you are afflicted with a Crowd Control effect, there is a 20-40% chance that the same enemy and enemies around you are also afflicted with the same effect for 3 seconds.
• Omnipower (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): Core Skills that launch a projectile consume all of your Mana. For every 45-35 extra Mana consumed, you launch an additional projectile, and the damage is increased by 3.0-5.0%.

That covers everything you need to know about Diablo 4 Season 1 Malignant Hearts. If you’re looking to optimise your character for Season 1, check out our Diablo 4 best Rogue build, Diablo 4 best Sorcerer build, Diablo 4 best Barbarian build, Diablo 4 best Druid build, and Diablo 4 best Necromancer build guides.